Oral B Genius X – What it’s like to use an AI toothbrush

You can have the best electric toothbrush available, but although it is capable of cleaning your teeth to a high standard, it is no good if you do not use it regularly, for the right amount of time or with the right technique.

In this job I end up talking to all kinds of people and on the busiest day of Mobile World Congress (the press day before the show starts) I had dinner with a pair of Periodontists. These firecrackers teach dentists how to teach people to brush their teeth properly and work to keep them current on new dentistry developments. They joked that of their patients exactly zero would brush their teeth properly every single time.

Few of us have ever been shown the right way to brush. Thinking back on my long life the last time I was taught to brush my teeth I was probably a child. My dentist definitely has shown me, given me a few useful tips and reminders, but it is easy to forget or do it wrong when you get home.

In recent years the electric toothbrush has become a lot smarter and many are now equipped with technology that acts a little like having a dentist on hand, with the aim that you and I become better at brushing our teeth.

Better brushing will generally lead to better oral health and less unexpected, costly and painful trips to the dentist. Flossing is linked to a higher life expectancy to clearly taking care of your mouth is an important activity.

Sensors and electronics built into the toothbrush handle now communicate via Bluetooth to a smartphone application that interprets that data and displays it in a meaningful way on screen for you and I to learn from.

This means that after our regular brushing we can see whether we missed an area in the mouth, used the wrong approach in another and whether we even brushed for the right amount of time at all.

Oral-B have been offering Bluetooth enabled toothbrushes for some time and have the largest range of Bluetooth enable models.

An upgrade on the Genius 9000, the Genius X, Oral-B claim this new AI-Brush knows more about brushing styles than anyone on the planet!

Using data acquired from existing users of Bluetooth enabled toothbrushes the Genius X has the technology to recognize brushing styles and knows how to improve our oral health.

The AI powering the GENIUS X has been trained with thousands of brushing behaviors, and so can identify your own unique brushing style. It can then figure out how that differs from best-practice, and begin coaching you on where you might improve. By tracking where, exactly, you’re brushing in your mouth, areas which may be neglected can be highlighted.

The ideas is that GENIUS X will make you brush for the right amount of time everywhere hassle-free, regardless of individual brushing styles.

One of the other interesting parts of my dinner, besides learning that dental brushes are the way to go and flossing is basically for savages who don’t care about their gums, was watching them “hardware test” the Genius X. They approach it in the same way I test a phone when I first pick it out. They turn it on, check how the brush feels while pushing on the skin of their hand and then the flex on the brush head when it turns red signaling that you’ve applied too much pressure.

Even though I brushed my teeth for the video and not so much for oral hygiene (and the app confirmed I did a bad job) my teeth still felt bizarrely clean!

Oral B has a vision for the future which included a holistic approach to wellness. Check out my video above to learn more.

The toothbrush comes in several colors, including white, black, purple and the trendy rose gold. Anthracite Gray, which will only be available on Amazon, is a particularly stylish choice. The unique case allows you to charge the toothbrush, and it has an additional USB port you can use to charge your phone, making it perfect for those hotel rooms with not enough outlets to go around.

I think it’s important to note that of all my MWC stories this is one that my parents asked me the most questions about, not the Huawei Mate X or what’s going on with all this 5G nonsense. It was an insistence that I make sure that AI is active in my oral health since going to the dentist regularly is one of my weaker adulating moments.

The Oral B GENIUS X is set to ship in the fall with no details on the pricing yet!